A Latent Dark (39 page)

“Why is everything round?” she asked.

“That’s so you don’t hurt yourself,” she said.

Or anyone else
, she thought she heard the woman say or think. Stintwell seemed unsettled by the question and didn’t meet Skyla’s eyes. Her second shadow, faint as it was, quivered.

“How long do I have to stay here?” she asked.

Stintwell took a breath that seemed more like a sigh and sat down on the bed, motioning Skyla to sit beside her.

“What if I told you that this place can provide anything that you need,” said the woman. “It can be your new home. There’s plenty of games and books—more books than you could read in your whole life. And the people here are very nice, Skyla. They’ve been wanting to meet you for a long time.”

Skyla blinked. “Me? But they don’t even know me.”

“They do, Skyla. They knew your mother.”

Skyla’s breath caught in her throat. “You knew my mother?”

“I didn’t,” said Stintwell. “But there are people here who knew her. They knew your aunt as well.”

Skyla had so many questions she felt paralyzed. She only stared at the woman, her mouth agape.

Stintwell’s eyes twinkled behind the glasses. “Now, what are you hungry for?”

“There’s a choice?”

“I can go check at the cafeteria if you want,” said Stintwell getting up. “I hear they make a good bratwurst on Tuesdays. You make yourself at home in the meantime.”

The door closed behind the woman and almost sealed itself to the wall. Skyla sat in the white on white room and shrugged off her rucksack. Why hadn’t her mother told her about this place? It was so clean and warm and full of food. And the woman was so nice compared to the soldiers. She should have grown up here.

But why did they cover her head with a bag? Darker questions bubbled to the surface. Why were they underground and why were they afraid she would hurt herself—or others?
Do they really think I’m a monster too?

Was it possible that they thought the shadows she read were their actual physical shadows? Now that would be pretty silly, to make a place this nice, all because you thought that the shadows on the wall were the shadows that followed you.

And did they really expect her to stay here forever? Skyla got up and walked to the door. There was no handle on the inside, only smooth white metal. Skyla felt a slow, dull thump of dread in her chest. She was trapped until Stintwell came back. She was a prisoner, not a guest. She remembered the hood.

But why? Where would she go even if she did know where she was being kept?

And they knew about her mother and Rhia. They seemed to know about her as well. Maybe it was worth playing along until she got answers. Then she would figure out how to escape. Skyla decided that she might as well get a free meal out of it in the meantime.

As she thought this, a strange tingle ran down her spine. From deep in the back of her mind, Skyla felt as though a giant—huge and living—had just stirred, pleased at her arrival.

Chapter 29

Gaining entrance into the city was as easy as dropping a couple of coins into eager armored hands. The dock guards looked as though they hadn’t had a decent meal in a while.

John couldn’t quite decide what was so odd about Rhinewall. It was beautiful in a dreary sort of way, with tall gothic towers that disappeared into the fog; narrow, meandering paths wound around sad looking willow trees in the sea mist; black and copper cables crisscrossed overhead, stretching from tower to tower like a giant playing cat’s cradle. The city wall loomed behind them, gray and green swirls covering its face, scarred from the bitter salt air.

When he did figure it out, he leaned to James and whispered, “It’s built on top of another city. You can see where they paved over sections!”

“Keep your voice down,” James said as they walked through the streets.

“But don’t you think that’s odd?” said John. “Look at that building there. You can still see metal girders where the stone has chipped away. It doesn’t match.”

“It’s an ancient city, Father. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if there were layers of construction. The last thing we want to do is stick out, so stop gawking.”

“And the electricity,” John continued. “Where do they get it all?”

“That,” said James, “is not a bad question at all.”

They looked upward at the cabling, black and twisted, curving through pipes and alleyways. It all eventually ran toward the center of the city. There was no central cathedral in Rhinewall, just a large spire that housed much of the Tinkerer’s Guild. Below it was a token church, small and stonework, dwarfed by the massive building.

“It’s the most likely place to look,” said John.

“Have you even thought about how you are going to ask?” said James. “Or are you just going to start talking to people, asking if they’ve seen a lost girl?”

“Or kidnapped…”

“Or kidnapped,” James added. “Who are you even going to ask?”

John frowned and headed onward, past a sign that read ENTERING TALON DISTRICT.

 “I don’t know,” he said finally. “But there’s a church. Maybe I can reach some common ground with the clergy here.”

“If you need help persuading anyone…” James said, then pulled a flap back on his backpack, exposing the folded rifle, curled into its metal gears and cogs. Compacted into itself, the gun looked like a clockwork curiosity more than a firearm.

John looked at the gun, then back at James. “James, I don’t think that will be necessary. This is the technological stronghold of The Church.
I’m
with The Church.” He smiled and patted James on the shoulder. “Relax. I know you haven’t been around people much, but I’ll talk us through things. Don’t worry.”

The Talon district was similar to the wedge-shaped districts of Bollingbrook, only much more rundown. It was a mess of crumpled buildings and random trees that reflected decades of neglect. The fog was thickening by the minute, but they could still make out the distant loading structures of the docks where the city slid into the sea.

They passed people standing in the streets, listless and staring. Those that actually moved did so in a mechanical fashion, as if sleepwalking. The people who walked beside them acted as nursemaids, speaking softly into their ears.

“What is wrong with everyone?” John asked under his breath as they passed a man sweeping the street absently.

John noticed eyes watching from some of the windows far above. Most of them vanished when they saw him looking back. He began to wonder what it was about this place that made everyone hide after dusk.

A line was waiting to enter one building that was unusually square in shape with odd-looking gothic spires jutting out of it. The people stood as if in a bread line, most of them with large bags under their eyes. A sign on the door read CONFESSIONAL.

John was going to say something to James before a silhouette moved in the darkness, startling him. James moved his hand toward the folded rifle, but relaxed when the figure only rose to a height of four and a half feet. It was a girl, her face a painting in soot. Her ratty hat bled greasy hair from every corner.

“Hi,” she said, standing directly in their path. Her mouth was a brilliant white crescent underneath the grime of her face.

“Hi yourself,” said John.

He felt a tug on his elbow and turned to James, who was shaking his head slowly. The girl was walking backwards in front of them, pacing them even if James made a conscious effort to veer away.

“Either of you like jewelry?” she said. “I have some for sale.”

“No,” said James, holding the folded gun now. The priest looked at him, appalled.

“We don’t have a lot of money,” John said apologetically, trying to ignore the obvious unease from James.

“I’d disagree, I know you bribed the guards.” the girl said. Her tone reminded him of Skyla, witty and sardonic.

“What’s your name?” John asked her.

“Gil,” she said. “My parents called me Gillian.”

“And how do you know we bribed the guards? I didn’t see you at the docks.”

She gave a coy shrug. “A little bird told me.”

“Do little birds tell you lots of things?”

“Little birds tell me things all the time. Just last week a seagull told me to look in the runoff for a boat. And when I did—hey, come back!”

James picked up his pace as they exited the tunnel, his eyes darting up at the windows. Gil began walking beside them. The dim light revealed torn clothes that all borrowed their color from the same palette of browns and dirty grays.

“Where are your parents?” asked John. “You’re out awful late.”

“They’re not my parents anymore,” she said in a voice so cheerful, it made John shiver. “My father anyway.”

“Why’s that?” he asked.

They passed under a streetlight and he realized, as the light splashed across the girl’s face, that one of her eyes was completely white, like a marble.

“My mom died when I was born, but my dad got taken to the sin engines,” she said casually. “They pay him a little every time he goes.”

“What does he sell there?”

She gave him another
You aren’t from around here
look and said, “He sold his soul. Everyone does it in Talon. You could too.”

“His soul, really?” asked John, hardly taking the girl seriously now. “I didn’t think you could even put a price on that. What will he do when it’s gone?”

“It’s never gone-gone, silly,” she said. “It grows back a little, but you can keep going back and selling a little at a time. That’s what the Confessional is for.”

“Did he tell you that?” asked John, feeling a nagging concern prickle up his spine.

“No,” she said. “He doesn’t tell me much of anything right now.”

She thrust out a rag-covered hand and John recoiled in spite of himself at the missing finger. At the center of her palm she held a ring, large enough that John didn’t think it would even fit his thumb.

“Do you want to buy a ring or not?” she said, thrusting her misshapen hand out at them, eggshell eye staring at nothing.

“That’s a big ring,” said John.

“You should see the hand I got it off of,” she said, giggling. Something about that giggle made the mist seem colder.

“If we buy it will you leave us alone?” James asked.

“You bet,” she said, still giggling. “Are you from Lassimir?”

“No,” said James. “Bollingbrook.”

He plopped a coin into her hand and she gawked at it. He took the ring; it was huge and plate-like. A stunted spike jutted out from the center of a miniature shield. John wondered to himself how big a man would have to be to wear a ring that size.

“Why did you ask if we were from Lassimir?” said John.

“Because everyone new is from there lately,” she said. “That ring is from Lassimir. Axel says that all the scum comes from Lassimir. That’s why the river is called the Lassimir now instead of the Rhine River. Because of all the scum that drifts here.”

Charming
, thought John.

“Who’s Axel?” John asked, suddenly wishing they had just rented a hotel room for the night.